The Bible: The Divinely Inspired Word of God, comprising 66 books that were written by 40 human authors over almost 1500 years of time, covering all of human history. The Bible was written to various different cultures, not to mention the diverse geo-political situations on the earth. It would be natural to think the Bible is a fragmented book that records specific eras of history, throwing in some philosophy to make it interesting. To the contrary, the Bible is a unified book that tells one marvelous story. You ask how that can be? We need to remember that the divine author is also the divine sovereign who rules over all of human history to work His divine purposes for all that He has created. The Bible conveys that one story of History that is His-story.

To help us see this on Sunday I want to take us back to High School literature class, using the parts of a good story, I want us to see how the Bible tells a unified story. A story that is true and continues to point people to the message of God’s power, righteousness, love, mercy and grace. Join me this Sunday for the Big Picture Look at what the Bible is telling us about God, the world we live in and ourselves.

On Sunday night I didn’t get the rest I needed after a long day. You would think I would have rested extremely well considering I had been up since 5 am and didn’t  really stop until 14 hours later, about an hour before I went to bed Sunday night. But I didn’t rest well at all. Why was that? I know why . . . I had spent the entire day, going from one task to another, multitasking just to stay on top of what I needed to do to get through the busiest single day of the year for me. When it came time for me to shut down for the night, I couldn’t find the rest I needed. Thankfully, I have slept extremely well the rest of the week. 

Our text this Sunday, Hebrews 3 & 4 talks about the need for rest; spiritual rest.  Spiritual rest comes when the believer stops their self-efforts of righteousness and rests in the finished work of Christ. The writer of Hebrews issues a warning that if we fail to hear and obey the Word of God, we will miss this rest. In place of this spiritual rest, people strive in their own self effort, trying to gain for themselves what only God can provide for them. Self-effort is part of our fallen condition and is very hard to completely abandon. What can be done to find a better rest?

Hebrews 4:12-16 provides the path to finding true and lasting rest. It begins with letting the Word of God do spiritual surgery on us that allows God to perform the needed healing. Join me this Sunday to see the powerful effect reading the Word of God can have on your life, and the rest you will find. 

Reading and understanding the Bible does not come naturally to any of us. There are several factors working against us:
The Devil doesn’t want you reading the Bible, so that means there is a spiritual opposition to reading and understanding the Bible.
The Bible was written between 2000 – 3500 years ago, in a different language, referencing different cultural nuances that are unfamiliar to us. Let’s face facts, the Bible is really old.
Last week we learned that the Bible has 40 different human authors with different writing styles.
The Bible has many different literary styles, some of which we would never read in any other aspect of our life. The apocalyptic writings are very hard, but even the Gospels can be hard if we don’t understand that the Gospel is a particular literary genre from that time period that we don’t have today.
I could go on . . . but you get the idea.

If you can relate, don’t be discouraged. I have a message of hope for you this Sunday: that you can read and understand the Bible. This week our entire church will be introduced to a method of reading the Bible that will help anyone better understand what they are reading in the Bible. It’s called the 7 Arrows of Bible Reading. The 7 Arrows prompts 7 questions to ask as you read a passage of scripture. For my message this week I will preach from Philippians 1:1-11, using the 7 Arrows method to unlock the meaning of the passage. Then, in the Community Group meetings, you will receive some teaching and coaching on how to do this yourself.

I’m going to guess that most of you have never had anyone teach you a simple way to effectively read the Bible. This Sunday, you will have an opportunity to change that. We want to help you be able to Read and Understand the Bible on your own, experiencing the life transforming power of God’s Word.

Philippians Introduction

There once was a time when most of the people in society accepted the Bible as not only God’s Word, but as trustworthy. The Bible was considered to be the book of truth and should not be questioned. Postmodernism changed all that. We now live in a time of skepticism about a great many aspects of society and especially about the Bible. Liberalism has crept into some of our main line Christian denominations, changing their view of the Bible from being God’s Word to just containing or having the Word of God. The implication of those statements is that the Bible is partly God’s Word, but other parts are not. Critical scholarship has also made unfounded accusations that the Bible has been edited over a period of centuries to better fit the agenda of a certain group of people. These points of criticism, along with others, have left people wondering if they can really trust the Bible. Is the Bible Reliable?

This Sunday, as well as in our Community Group studies, we will seek to answer that question. To have the full answer you will have to join us for church this Sunday, but the short answer to that question is YES, you can 100% trust your Bibles. This will be a very different kind of message for me to preach. I usually share an expository message from one primary text of Scripture. This week, I want to trace the history of how we got the Bible as we have it today. As we consider the way the Bible has carefully been handed down from generation to generation, it will give you confidence in the reliability of The BOOK.

Sunday we start a new Churchwide focus on the role of Scripture in the believer’s life: The BOOK & Me. I am excited to share this series with you simply because I love the Word of God! The Bible is the greatest book ever written and is the bestselling book in human history. The Bible has the power to transform lives, entire societies, and I know has transformed me. From a literary perspective, the Bible is unparalleled in the beauty with which it is written and historically, the Bible provides a truthful insight into humanity that no other writing can. 

Why does the Bible need to hold such a high place for us? Because it is no ordinary book. The Bible is the very Word of God. Every word of that last sentence is important to understand if we are to grasp the impact of the Bible on our lives. The operative word in that sentence is the verb “Is.” The Bible does not simply contain the Word of God, or have the Word of God, or become the Word of God. No – the Bible is the very Word of God. And because the Bible is the Word of God, we must assume that it holds authority over our lives and when we live under the instruction found in the Word of God, we will discover the blessing of God. 

I’m also excited about this series because what I will preach on Sundays will be reinforced in the 12 Community Groups meetings throughout the week as they join in a study that corresponds to my messages. We currently have around 120 adults in those various community groups and there is room for more to join. If you are not already in a community group, I invite you to join one, even if it’s only for this 6-week series, by completing the BOOK & Me commitment card. We will help you find a group that is convenient for you to join. 

THIS SUNDAY – Scripture Alone

During the protestant reformation there were five simple statements, the 5 Solas, which were foundational to the reform brought to the church. Sola simply means “Alone.” The first is Scripture Alone – Sola Scriptura. What that statement corrected in the church is that the Holy Scriptures, the Bible, are the complete revelation of God: it is God’s Word. The 66 books that comprise our Bible are the complete written revelation of God and should not be added to or subtracted from. That makes the Bible a necessary book for every believer to grow in their relationship with God. Join me this Sunday as we start this exciting series on the Bible, the most amazing book in all of human history. 

This Sunday is part two of a message I shared last week redefining Good Religion. Sunday we will look at a very familiar story from Luke 10, the Parable of the Good Samaritan. The context of this parable is Jesus and an expert of the Jewish law are discussing how a person can inherit eternal life. Another way to say that is, what is a good religion? Jesus and the man agree that good religion is loving God and loving your neighbor. But the expert of the law wants to justify himself and what has been his typical religious practice of neighboring, so he asks the question, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus responds by sharing the parable of the Good Samaritan. I’m assuming we are all familiar with the account. Jesus closes the discussion by asking the expert a different question. A better question. The more important question: “Who was the neighbor to the man who fell to the hands of robbers?” Jesus masterfully connects Good Religion first, to love for God, which, if sincere, will be accompanied by a sacrificial love for others.
It is easy to think of religion as something we do in a sanctuary building or on a mountain top experience. Jesus teaches us that true religion is as practical as meeting the needs of others who can never repay our kindnesses. That is a true neighbor! Join me this Sunday for part two of Good Religion.

“Good Religion” in many ways seems to be an oxymoron. Can religion be good? I know that seems like a strange comment coming from a Baptist preacher who has devoted his life in service to a religious organization. To be honest, I’ve always struggled with the term religion and have bristled when people have referred to me as a religious person. Why is that? There are two reasons why I think I hold that position to the term “religion.” First, Jesus himself condemned religion. Jesus saw religion as a bad attempt to come to God on our terms and was more about self-promotion than the glory of God. Secondly, I’ve seen too many people hurt by overly religious people. The crusades are a vivid example from world history, but I’ve also personally seen wounds inflicted on others through religious judgement and because of self-promotion. For the culture we are trying to reach with the gospel of Jesus Christ, the concept of religion is a barrier for them to come to Christ. Can religion be good?
This Sunday we are going to visit the book of Nehemiah where we will see the aftermath of religion gone bad and how good religion is reestablished. The man Nehemiah began his life in a position of service to others. Through his faithful service God saw qualities in his life that God tapped into to lead the nation toward a good religion. As he led the effort to rebuild the wall of Jerusalem Nehemiah faced opposition, to which he responded by giving each family and groups of families the responsibility to not only build but to defend the area closest to them. In these developments we see the dynamics of good religion. Nehemiah’s rallying cry was, “As I follow God, follow me and invite others to follow you in obedience to the Lord.”
Good religion is not complicated – it’s simple. Good religion is not top down – it’s as grass roots as it gets. Good religion can’t be compared to secular organizations – it must be understood as a spiritual organism. Good religion is not trapped in the confines of tradition – it organically adapts to relate the Gospel to the culture the church exists in. Nehemiah was a spiritually minded leader who saw the necessity of enabling other spiritually minded leaders of people. The church today must do the same thing. My message title, “Good religion needs someone to follow,” implies that same truth. The focus of our ministry is to help all people become more fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ, and in the process, spiritually minded. It takes spiritually minded leaders to do this at every level of the ministry. This Sunday, ask God to reveal to you a spiritually minded person that you could gravitate toward – a person that could help you and others grow in Christ-likeness. As you the body do this, those who God desires to lead our church to practice Good Religion will become self-evident. Good Religion Needs Someone to Follow.

Sunday we wrap up our Summer Sermon Series, The Journey of Faith, with the 15th message of the series: Jesus – The Object of Our Faith. From Hebrews 11 we have looked into the lives of people commended for their faith. These were less than perfect people, often with a small faith.
What I hope we have learned through this amazing chapter is that the most important thing in the Journey of Faith is not the person demonstrating the faith (us), which can often have small or weak faith, but the most important thing is the object of our faith, which must be Jesus.
The teaching from Hebrews 11 continues into Chapter 12:1-3 where we see this clearly. The Hebrew’s writer calls us to “fix our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.” A little bit of faith in a big God is an awesome thing. Join me this Sunday for the conclusion to our summer series.